And Sheryl Sandberg is also on the board. SurveyMonkey is the
company where Sandberg's late husband, Dave Goldberg,
was CEO for six years
before his tragic death in May.

Although Whitman runs in the same high-powered circles as
Sandberg, her connection with SurveyMonkey comes from its
current CEO Bill Veghte.

Veghte was a long-time Microsoft exec who was pulled away
to join HP by Whitman's predecessor, Leo Apotheker,
when Apotheker tried to turn HP into more
of a software company.

Facebook COO Sheryl
Sandberg.Reuters / Mike
Segar

After Apotheker was ousted and replaced by
Whitman, Veghte's career had a lot of twists.

He was briefly her chief strategy officer, then COO, then
tapped to run the enterprise group, replacing Dave Donatelli.
(Donatelli is now working for HP rival Oracle.) He was also
running a team organizing the HP split, while
remaining the general manager of the HP Enterprise group.

But after HP becomes two companies in November, Whitman will be
CEO of the spun-out HP Enterprise company. Sticking around
would have been almost a demotion for Veghte,
and
sources had told us that he wasn't planning on staying.

Meanwhile, Veghte and Goldberg were college buddies
and close friends for 30 years. Goldberg had been trying to
get Veghte on SurveyMonkey's board for years, and he had finally
agreed to do it after the HP split was done,
he told Business Insider.

SurveyMonkey CEO Bill VeghteHP

When SurveyMonkey reached out to him to become CEO the
timing couldn't have been better for Veghte, even
though it was under heartbreaking circumstances.

Employees loved the choice. They had taken to wearing
"#makedaveproud" T-shirts at work, and
they cried and cheered when Goldberg's good friend, a
respected tech exec, took the CEO job.

Now, with Whitman on the board, Veghte's career has
come full circle. It also says something about his opinion
of her that he would invite her as a board
member.

It all adds up to a bright future for SurveyMonkey, which
now has 9 board members and may be readying itself for an IPO
sooner rather than later.